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Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Fabric Mixed Media Portraits with Stencils

Hi everyone, it's Gwen here today with a new art journal page using stencils, fabric, and markers. For this project I was inspired by one of the challenges for The Documented Life Project as well as by a small fabric shop near my house that I recently visited. The challenge was to use fabric on your art journal page as a texture element. The fabric store I was at had a bin of free fabric scraps left over from their projects and classes, and I came out with a handful of small pieces that I really liked. But how to use them? With stencils, of course!

To start, I took the Pretty as a Peacock stencil by Andrea Matus deMeng and put it upside down on the back of a scrap of fabric and traced the outline of the piece of the stencil that I wanted. I guess you could think of this like paper piecing, but with fabric.

I cut the piece out and then repeated the process with different sections of the stencil and different pieces of fabric. Then I used the stencil as a guide to lay the fabric down on a piece of book paper. I adhered everything in place with a 50/50 mix of water and matte Mod Podge and left it to dry / stiffen up for a few hours.

Yup, it's pretty obvious... this was the ugly phase of the project. And I mean UGLY! I was mentally working out my backup plan for this one because I wasn't sure I could save it. But I persevered!

To try and turn this slightly frightening piece into something that looked good, I started by using some Archival Ink and a blending tool to get some of the detail from the stencil onto my piece - especially those feathers! Then I used Copic markers and a Stabilo All pencil to start adding color, shading, and detail.

Whew! Not so scary anymore. I kept at it until I was pretty happy with how she looked, then I added her into my book. I started an 18-month planner for DLP last July, so I'm still working in a Moleskine for mine, but she fit right onto the page for that week that was set aside for my art. I just trimmed a bit on the sides and then added a piece of book paper that was printed using the 9x12 stencil from the December 2014 StencilClub kit. I finished it up with a ribbon, and voila! A finished art journal page that has a very different look and some fun texture.

Ready to get our your stencils and fabric scraps? Make sure you come back and share your projects if you give this one a try!

Hope you enjoyed today's post... until next time, happy stenciling! Gwen